


Remainder of Warmth

by busaikko



Series: Autumn Stories [29]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: scarvesnhats, M/M, Marauders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-19
Updated: 2005-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:42:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lying low at Lupin's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remainder of Warmth

_He heard his own raging voice echoing in his ears: “If you don’t trust me you can get the hell out.” And Remus’ eyes on him, opaque and cold._

_Somehow they ended up making love (because even after all the angry words he couldn’t stand to think of it as_ fucking _); but when Sirius came home from work the next day not a trace of Remus remained. The books were gone, his clothes from the drawers, his tea cup, his razor, his records. Every photograph of Remus had been removed. Not even his scent lingered in the bed, which reeked of cheap laundry soap. The windows were shut and locked, and the blinds were drawn._

_Sirius wished desperately that he had told James when Remus had said that he should. It would only be bloody and stupid to do so now (‘James, I’m gay’ – ‘James, I’m in love with Remus’ – ‘James, he’s gone and I’m dying’). Too much for anyone to handle._

_He drank himself stupid and woke up smelling like his mother: bitter, rancid anger and stale liquor, followed by the sweet smell of sick under medicinal mouthwash. He disgusted himself._

_From then on, it was just one cock-up after another. Before he knew it his life was reduced to a cell in Azkaban, and all he was left with was a certain skill at solving crossword puzzles and the ability to turn into a dog._

* * *

The time after the Triwizard fiasco were spent in emotional overload. Sirius’ time in the tropics had been dreamlike and soothingly alien; the caves he’d inhabited above Hogsmeade had reminded him, not pleasantly, no, but familiarly of Azkaban. Remus’ house, on the other hand, was riddled with ghosts and traps. He’d spent the first few weeks unable to go further than the front hall, avoiding the books and framed pictures in the front room and the kitchen, full of familiar foods whose flavours he didn’t remember.

Remus was patient and ruthless by turns. He would give him an apple from the tree down the garden, and Sirius would carry it around all day, relearning that he liked the feel of the taut skin, soft over a bruise. He would take it with him on his rambles in the hills, and each bite into the grainy fruit resonated with apples eaten before, became a part of the gestalt of apples that he could no longer reach except through these slow fumbling steps.

When it got dark he would pick the last bits out of his teeth and go home, and sometime later casually bring up apples with Remus. “I don’t like apples,” he would say, “too sweet and sour.” Remus never said ‘I know’ or ‘but you—‘ or ‘remember that time--?’ He would shrug and be heartless. “Too bad, apples are all we have” or, “more for me, then.”

The summer had been dry and hot and far too short, with storms that blew in from the ocean and crashed onto the hills. Autumn came suddenly, without notice. One day he was content to spend his days in Remus’ rolled-up jeans and tatty vests; the next he found himself rummaging through boxes for jumpers and jackets and pyjamas of the flannel persuasion.

“Sweet Merlin’s left tit, I _remember_ this,” he said, as he pulled out a soft red jumper. The cuffs were frayed and the elbows patched, and there was a dark stain on one side.

“Mm,” Remus said, sipping at the tea that Sirius suspected he drank continuously to keep hunger at bay. “I’ve had that a while. The colour suits you,” he added. “It’s cashmere and quite warm.”

“I know what cashmere is,” Sirius said sharply, biting his tongue on the words _I’m surprised that you do_. He ran his weather-roughened fingers over the slippery softness, then pulled it over his head in one swift motion. The sleeves were not too long, like those on all of Remus’ other clothes. “This was mine, wasn’t it?”

Remus set his cup down. “Yes. I stole it when I moved out. When you asked me if I knew where it was, I lied to you and said I had no idea.”

Sirius blinked, but he suspected the memory would have been irresistibly full of pain and anger; he also suspected that he’d been glad to give it up. There was something ineffably sad about Remus keeping—and wearing—this jumper. One stolen jumper against twelve stolen years.

But Sirius was expert at turning off his emotions by now, and Remus was sipping tea again.

“I’ll just take this back, then,” he said, folding the others back into the box.

“It’s yours,” Remus said, and Sirius felt the increasingly-familiar nameless longing to reach out, to hold and comfort; but he was no longer certain whether he was the kind of person who could do that. And he did not know whether Remus would accept it, even if he were.

He wore his jumper every day after that, and he noticed that Remus’ eyes followed it—followed him—as he moved through the house.

He could barely hold himself together; empathy was too much to expect, he thought angrily. But he wondered if Remus had worn his jumper and thought of him. He wondered if its warmth had been a good substitute for his touch. He wondered if it was really his anymore, or if it had transferred its allegiance to Remus years ago.

  
the falling leaves drift by the window  
the autumn leaves of red and gold.  
i see your lips, the summer kisses  
the sun-burned hands i used to hold.  
\--NAT KING COLE, autumn leaves  


  


* * *

Sirius wasn’t sure when he had his epiphany, but when he was able to voice it he did.

“You’re beautiful,” he said to Remus during the washing-up.

Remus threw back his head and laughed; each time he tried to stop he would catch Sirius’ eyes and start laughing again. “Liar,” he finally wheezed out, leaning against the drainboard for support. “Oh, god.” He grinned, tea towel in one hand, shirt damp, and Sirius thought, _it’s not a lie, there are just different kinds of beauty, that’s all_.

“ _I_ think you’re beautiful,” he said, and crossed the room with the full intent of kissing Remus right there in the kitchen. Remus was watching him warily now, wiping his hands with the towel until Sirius thought he’d scrub the skin from his hands.

“Stop that,” Sirius said, taking the towel away and tossing it in the direction of the peg. He took Remus’ hands in his own, chafing the cold from them gently. In all these months, he had not had the courage to touch Remus because God alone knew what might happen. Did he need to apologise for all the mistakes he’d made all those years ago? All the idiot things he’d said? He was sure he didn’t even remember all of them by now.

“Sirius, I don’t think….”

“I don’t _want_ to think, I’ve had it with thinking. I want to _feel_.” And he _did_ : it was a terror and a curse and he should have been drunk before he started any of this, but it was too late now.

“I know you do—I just—I don’t—“ The words died off as Sirius took Remus in his arms and kissed his way from Remus’ ear to his chin. He didn’t recall Remus being so stubbly; but they had been younger, and certainly Remus must have _made an effort_ back then. Sirius was sure that he had too, that at some point he had given a damn about things like haircuts and clothes and whiskers, before he had become occupied with remembering his name, the name of his lover, the feel of the sun.

“I can’t lose you again,” Remus said, one hand tangling in Sirius’ jumper, twisting it mercilessly.

“You can’t not live your life because it might end, you told me once.”

Remus closed his eyes for a second. “I was young, what did I know?”

“Well.” Sirius tightened his arms around Remus, fitting them together like a puzzle, hands spread wide on Remus’ back. “You are going to lose me again. I am going to lose you again. We are dead men on stolen time, and if you don’t think that you are deluding yourself. We already know that there will be no happily ever after. Not for us. The question is, do you think you can love me again? I did not,” he said carefully, “love you in Azkaban. But I have spent the summer falling in love with you again—not the memory of you, there’s precious little of that left, and it’s full of holes—but who you are now.”

Remus’ head had come to rest on his shoulder. His hands were still distressing the jumper. Sirius had the sudden sharply wounding image of Remus curled up around the jumper, clenching it in both hands in desperation to keep the nightmares away.

“It’s going to be worse than it was before,” Remus said, as if speaking were painful. “I am doing work for the Order that I am honour-bound not to discuss. And you’re here, in your mother’s house, and I know it kills you to be trapped. There are children to consider, and Harry must… Harry must come first. I will be travelling… I will have to leave you behind, again.”

“But this time I trust you, Moony.” Remus shuddered; Sirius really couldn’t blame him. “If, you know, your answer’s no, it’s OK.”

“I never stopped loving you,” Remus said, the words stumbling out over each other. “I never stopped wanting you. Even though I thought you were a murderer until I saw Peter on the map.” He shrugged, angrily. “Do you have any idea how many people I slept with to try and erase your touch? You were gone. I lied, stole, cheated, fucked, beat people bloody, was beaten, ran away. But it didn’t destroy me, do you understand that? I still got up every morning, still went to work, still planted seeds, still enjoyed a good sunrise or a good book or the season’s first strawberries. I went on. I went on without you. That’s not—there’s no beauty in that.”

“The beauty is in survival.” Sirius raised one hand to stroke Remus’ hair, striped with grey. “That’s what I see. I see the Remus Lupin who has survived, and survived _well_ , don’t shake your head, it’s true. You’re a good person. You still laugh at things that aren’t funny. The kids love you, can’t stop talking about Professor Lupin. Beauty _is_ survival. Look at me—twelve years in Azkaban, and I’m fucking gorgeous.”

He’d wanted to make Remus laugh. As the words left his mouth he had second thoughts: he’d be forced to flee if he made Remus cry, that would be dreadful. But Remus merely raised his head, looked at him blankly for a long moment, and then released the jumper to frame his face in both hands; and kissed him.

He supposed it ought to be considered their first kiss; it was certainly the first one that he really remembered. He’d had vague suspicions ( _Didn’t I kiss Moony once under a tree?_ or _I’m sure we did something on hills like these once_ ) but all else was gone.

He barely remembered the mechanics of kissing. His kinetic memory was shot to hell: he doubted he’d be able to ride a broom or a motorbike. Just climbing stairs had baffled him for the longest time, or knowing which way to twist things _open_ or _shut_. So the kiss had the verisimilitude of all first kisses, bumped noses and teeth, pinched lips and awkward tongues. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, what he was allowed to touch. He wanted to watch Remus all the time, but his eyes kept sliding shut. He felt the most overpowering lust since, oh, as long as he could remember, and had no idea what to do about it.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Remus said, tugging him towards the doorway.

He was halfway up the stairs when the uncertainty overwhelmed him, the terror of starting something he didn’t know if he could finish. He clenched Remus’ hand and stopped.

“I don’t know—“ he said when Remus looked back.

Remus smiled. “ _That’s_ familiar. We never _did_ know what we were doing, but we did it anyway.” He pulled Sirius up the last few steps and down the hall. Remus’ bedroom was painfully neat and impersonal, and the bed was narrow. It had been Narcissa’s guest room, all in delicate yellows and white, and Kreacher had kept it in shrine-like perfection for her all these years. He’d screamed with rage when Remus moved in, and hadn’t entered the room since the time he’d snuck in to make off with the priscillas.

The tall, narrow window stood open, overlooking the tangled courtyard, and Sirius was surprised to see that the trees below were still brilliant with autumn colours, the sky above a perfect cloudless chill blue. The season lasted longer in London, he supposed, although Molly was already nattering on about Christmas. The air was frigid, though Remus didn’t seem to mind as he pulled his shirt over his head.

“Do you never feel the cold?” Sirius asked. Remus raised an eyebrow, hands on the waistband of his trousers.

“You can shut the windows,” he said, “if it bothers you,” but there was something amused in his tone.

Sirius sat to take off his boots, stuffing his socks inside, and then tugged off his jumper, shirt, and vest all in a tangle. Remus sat next to him, radiating warmth, his shoulder brushing Sirius’, leaning his weight on the hand behind Sirius as he leant in to kiss him again.

He did trust Remus, more so perhaps than he trusted himself. He trusted Remus’ hands on his skin, leaving imprints of warmth against the cold, touching places untouched for years: feet, knees, elbows, stomach. Sirius trusted that Remus did not find him repulsive, a shadow of what he had been; trusted that Remus saw him as he was now and still desired him.

Hands found old scars, and a hot tongue laved them. He trusted Remus’ mouth, pressed against each of his eyes in turn, worshipful of his ears and his nipples, and burning almost unbearably against his cock. He trusted Remus to take him into his mouth and trusted him when that mouth moved away, promising him his release soon enough.

He trusted Remus’ voice, the small noises that encouraged him to touch where he wanted, the invitation in the words “more” and “please” and “yes” and in his name, spoken like a prayer.

He trusted the language of Remus’ body, trusted each involuntary press of his hips, each ragged breath, each clench of tight muscle around him, trusted that it spoke of redemption, of light, of warmth, of love. He trusted that of all the mad babble that came from his mouth as he came buried in Remus’ warmth, that Remus would hear the most important words; and he was sure that Remus did, because he echoed them as he collapsed across Sirius, breathless and as sweat-drenched as if he’d been running in the sun.

They lay entwined and unspeaking until Sirius began to shiver with the damned cold, and Remus took him into the bath to warm up. Being just the two of them, with water hot enough to scald some feeling back into numbed extremities and air nearly tropical, Sirius felt for the first time the suggestion of hope. Perhaps the misfit of falling in love with someone who’s moved on might somehow work. Perhaps Remus’ orbit might somehow bring that enduring beauty back enough that it might begin to wear off.

And as time went by, as he felt himself falling backwards, losing all the progress he had made at Remus’ house, as he felt himself pulled irrevocably down by the weight of the past; as the New Year began and as he came to apogee and then accelerated into retrograde rotation; as the walls closed in and even spring coming could not thaw the ice that had settled in his bones; as he felt himself cycling back into madness, he pulled on his shabby jumper and waited for the remainder of Remus’ warmth to return.


End file.
